Page: Quotes, Prayer (how), Prayer (problems), Quote Topic
When your mind does wander during prayer, bring it back. When it wanders again, bring it back again. Each and every time that you read a prayer while your thoughts are wandering (and consequently you read it without attention and feeling,) then do not fail to read it again. Even if your mind wanders several times in the same place, read it again and again until you read it all the way through with understanding and feeling. In this way, you will overcome this difficulty so that the next time, perhaps, it will not come up again, or if it does return, it will be weaker.
–Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Struggle (with Sin)
Just as people do not enter war in order to enjoy war, but in order to be saved from war, so we do not enter this world in order to enjoy this world, but in order to be saved from it. People go to wars for something greater than war. So we also enter this temporal life for the sake of something greater: for eternal life. And as soldiers think with joy about returning home, so also Christians constantly remember the end of their lives and their return to their heavenly fatherland..
–Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
Page: Quotes
If some temptation arises in the place where you dwell in the desert, do not leave that place in time of temptation. For if you leave it then, no matter where you go, you will find the same temptation waiting for you.
–Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
Page: Quotes, Prayer (how), Prayer (what)
The essence of morning prayer is to thank God for sleep, rest and regained strength and to pray that He will help us do everything to His glory. Express this to Him with your mind and with your whole heart.
–Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
Acceptance, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic
Affliction or consolation, health or sickness, is all one to a heart that loves. Since we wish only to please God, it should be enough for us that His Will is accomplished.
–Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)
Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Love (simple acts), Page: Quotes, Quote Author, Quote Topic
Little daily acts of charity, a headache, toothache or cold, the ill humor of a husband or wife, this contempt or that scorn, the loss of a pair of gloves, a ring or a handkerchief, the little inconveniences incurred by going to bed early and getting up early to pray or attend Mass, the little feelings of self-consciousness that comes with performing good deeds in public – in short, all such little things as these when accepted and embraced with love are highly pleasing to God’s mercy. For a single cup of water God has promised to his faithful people a sea of endless bliss.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
